The Portland daily press., 1887-10-19

Prof. Todd, and they Immediately Joined the
expedition at Yokohama. The Japanese
government did everything to help on the
enterprise, and four days after making land
the party set out for Toxic, where the impe-
rial observatory is located
The first thing to be done was to select a
spot for the observation of the eclipse. This
was no easy matter to decide. The officers
and instructors at the imperial observatory
lent assistance. They thought Prof. Todd
would have better chances of clear August
afternoon on the west coast Of Japan than
elsewhere. II should doubtless have gone
thither without further inquiry" said Prof.
Todd, were not the means Of sea transpor-
tion around to the other side Of the island
uncertain and the journey over the noun
tainS OF western central Japan with a ton Of
instruments wholly inexpedient. As had
abundance of time deter mined upon trip
into eastern central Japan along the line of
the Japan railway, which extends TO the
north of Toxic through the mountains, 113
miles to Shirakawa This place was as near
ly as desirable on the central line of the
eclipse, being only 10 OF II miles north Of it
and % or 80 miles from the mountains to the
west, far enough, 1t seemed, TO be without
the range Of any perturbing. effect upon the
atmosphere. / concluded, therefore, TO To-
cate the station at Shirakawa. One of the
native observatory professors, who provided
most OF the apparatus for special obServa-
tons on the corona, desired me to place all
or part of these on the summit of one Of the
mountain peaks adjacent TO the center Of the
shadows path. DIR. Holland made the as
cent OF oneOf these mountains $500 feet high,
but the. difficulties of this were so great, the
cloudy condition OF the air up there so prob
able, that abandoned this plan. So the ex-
pedltion set out for Shirakawa and entered
that place on the first train ever sent over
this extension of the railroad. A little out
from this town Of 10000 inhabitants are the
ruins Of a oEce famous castle built 800 years
ago. the abode Of the Abe family, which was
assaulted and destroyed in the revolution Of
1868. Within a mOat are walls three-fOuTths
OF mile long, half a mile wide and 80 feet
high. The prospect from the top of this pile
was magnificent. One could look far away
out over the valley to the mountains west
and north, and broad fields to the south. So
here decided to locate the station by per-
mission of the minister of war.
Our main instrument was the horizontal
photOheliOgraph of nearly 40 feet focal length
the Identical apparatus used by Prof. New
comb at the Cape Of Good Hope in 1882 to
photograph the transit of Venus. 1t took
two weeks to put this instrument into place
so far as concerned the parts required for
photograpPrhlng the partial phases OF the
eclipse. The main work Of the expedition
was regarded to be the taking Of 100 photo
graphs of these partial phases; but had
determined to attempt corOnal photography
with the same apparatus, hoping to secure 3
or 10 negatives of such size that subsequent
-
fortunate enough to secure the services Of
NJ. X. Ogawa of Toxic, an experienced pho
tographer, and DIR. Y. Moy Kong, formerly
of Washington. With so efficient a corps
and with drill we all underwent had every
reason of anticipating complete success.
The morning Of August 10 dawned bright
and clear; all looked propitious. But the
heat was sitting. Away to the west the vol
canO Nasusau, which had been wonderfully
quiet along back, had suddenly begun to
the morning lazy white clouds lay about
with no great threatening aspect. The
eclipse was to come about o'clock in the
afternoon and everything was gotten ready
for the supreme three minutes or So for
which we had come over land and seas. l
had placed X. Hitchcock of the Smithsonian
institute in charge of the Photographic oper-
ations. Mr.. Pemberton had carefully ar
ranged the devices for the perfect working
Of the photoheliograph, which required the
services Of six persons. Lieut.. Switzerland
had charge of the cOronagraph, whose plates
were exact duplicates of those to be used the
same day by Prof Young near Moscow at
the other extreme end of the line of tOtality.
ID. ID. B. McCartee operated a single cam
era provided by Prof Pickering for cor
onal research, and DR.. Ames of the United
States navy had charge of double camera.
The United States consul at Yokohama, Mr..
GreathOuse, worked several small holders of
sensitive plates. The Japanese naval OBJ
servatory had furnished fOur-inch telescope
to be used by DIR. Holland. Mrs. Hitchcock
also was called into service. X. Acino, a
student, was instructed to watch from the
corner Of the castle walls the approach Of
the lunar shadow over the rice fields. Mrs
Todd was assigned the duty of sletching the
faint outer corona with its long equatorial
streamers NJ. Nakagawa, director of the
Toxic observatory, was to make some meteo-
rological observations. l had previously
prepared in Japanese full instructions for
the use OF volunteer observers in about 40
towns situated just inside of the north and
south limits of the eclipse and at 90 places or
more near the center. These would have
been OF value in noting phases Of the phe-
nomenon.
''Thus we waited the time of contact.
Meantime the smoke and steam of the vol
canO poured forth and feecy clouds began
to gather about this ominous pillar and
spread over the sky. Two black clouds next
appeared in the south and east and seemed
to start In a race as to which should reach
the clean zenith first. Not breath of air
stirred. BY the time of first contact the sun
was Invisible, but brief interval of clear
sky gave time for adjusting the heliostat and
making 10 or II exposures. Only five of
these photographs, however, will be avail
able, as the light was very faint. Shortly
after totality there was partial clearing
but too brief and with too faint light to
allow Of the necessary adjustments of the
silvered mirrors which had been put into
position in the hope of getting the whole or a
part of the total phase. As totality ap-
preached l thought | might make good
observation of second contact by watching
for the approach of the moons shadow
among the clouds, but the attempt failed. the
light appearing to be too much diffused to
allow OF even an approximate estimate
l found afterwards in Mrs. Todd's notes
Of the eclipse, the statement that total
ity appeared to her to come on not evenly
but as if by jerks-a phenomenon, | think,
which must have been due to the extinction
Of the suns light by one cloud after another
IN the northwestsky as the shadow advanced
Weather maps Of Japan showed that clouds
had obscured the sky at all the stations in
the eventful afternoon. The value of the
drawings made by the voluntary observers
Is uncertain. During the eclipse a darkness
came on so great that we could not distin-
guish the time by our watches. Thus far the
expedition-and that of Prof. Young it seems
as well, the first serious attempts to obtain
reliable evidence of rapid changes i'm the
corona. 1t will be many year before an
other eclipse will occur with two stations
geographically so well placed for this special
research as those Of Russia and Japan. All
the expeditions sent out in many directions
under Japanese auspices also come to
nought."
Alter the discouraging events Of the 10Th,
Prof. Todd and his party pulled down their
tents within the ruined castle walls and pre-
pareu 10 move nOmeWaTu. Inc natives OF
the section had treated them all with great
kindness. A delegation of citizens from the
province, headed by the governor, waited
upon the party at the castle during their stay
and presented chickens and ducks, which
were devoured In short order by the meat
hungry company, who had been forced to
live chiefly on rice, etc. Later they were Wis
tied by the yassals Of the Abe family, who
brought big platter loaded with eggs.
Prof. Todd's next move was to test some
mountain peak for astronomical purposes for
Havard University under the provisions Of
the BoyntOn fund. Accordingly Fugi-San
was selected-the highest mountain in Japan
whose summit is white with snow a good
part Of the year. 1t is an extinct volcano
L, 400 feet high, huge and regular. Nine
huts or stations divided the path to the sum
init into nearly equal parts. With coolies
to bear the burdens Prof. and Mrs. Todd
and DR.. Holland made the ascent and passed
two freezing cold days ON the summit with
air so rare as to occasion depressing heavi-
ness. Mrs. Todd has described this event of
the trip in letter to the Nation. The pro-
fessor and his wife next went back to Toxic,
where the president of the university tend
cred them reception and lunch, at which
toasts were proposed and responded to in
japanese and English. They sailed on the
18th OF September for home. taking the